#nirahsa

The perspective was not that of Cid or the leaders, overseeing the battlefield. This perspective was on the ground, as the armies clashed. Blood and ceruleum smoke filled her nostrils. Her ears rang from explosions both mechanical and magical, the shouts of soldiers still fighting, the screams of the wounded. Sweat rolled down her face, down her back under her armor; she was covered in dirt, cut and bruised, muscles burning as her weapon swung and clashed with yet another Garlean gunblade.

The light on the field was a sickly red as Dalamud loomed, ever nearer. 

We fought, we did everything we were supposed to, and still it came to this!

The thought was not her own, the voice was familiar and yet…

The moon cracked, raining fire and giant shards of metal onto the battlefield and malms beyond. The primal’s roar set her bones to vibrating and her insides felt like watery jelly.

Soldiers of both sides broke and ran as burning metal continued to fall, along with the aetheric fire of the dragon’s rage. She remembered the despair, and the frustration, the resignation–they had failed, and now there was nowhere left to run, as Death itself loomed over the realm.

A light gleamed behind her, shielding her and her friends–people she had known for months and years, knew better than she knew herself, and yet in these dreams she could never see their faces, couldn’t remember–from the monster’s blows. Louisoix looked small from this distance, but his determined stance stirred a sort of hope in her chest.

Alongside the rest of the world, she watched as the Archon attempted to rebind the Elder Primal–and alongside the rest of the world, she cried out when he failed.

An outstretched hand. An unheard spell. The symbol of Althyk…

The world whited out, fading to nothingness, and she was back to those early, familiar visions of Hydaelyn, the Calamity a distant memory and new threats on the horizon…

************

Aeryn awoke in her bed in the Pendants. The sky was blue and pink while the sun rose over Lakeland, a lavender haze hanging low over the woods as night gave way to morning.

“Are you all right?” Ardbert asked, shifting from one foot to another nearby; she wasn’t sure if he had been there all night, or had returned when he sensed her distress. “You were moaning in your sleep, and sweating buckets besides.”

“…What did you just say?”

“Huh? It just seemed like you were having some really bad nightmares–”

“No, you–nevermind,” she sat up the rest of the way and swung her feet to the floor. “Was a nightmare I haven’t had for awhile. Almost a relief, considering the newer ones.”

Like Tesleen. Like the Lightwardens already fought. Like Vauthry’s sin eaters attacking Lakeland. Like Y’shtola’s warnings. 

Aeryn looked up at her ghostly roommate. It was still so striking, how much Ardbert reminded her of her brother–the Source’s first Warrior of Light, who had faced Nael van Darnus and tried to stop the Calamity, but vanished in its fires.

And so Hydaelyn had made Aeryn his replacement.

Would he have been strong enough to hold all this Light?

“What time is it?” She asked as she stood and began her morning stretches.

“Uh…” Ardbert looked toward the chronometer. “Not quite six yet. You’ve got time before meeting the others.” He started to head for the door, as he often did when she was getting ready.

“…Hey. Wanna stay? Least until I’m needing to wash up.”

He paused, glancing back, then shrugged. “If you’d like. Wanting to chit chat while you work out?”

“Something like that. Tell me more about some of your adventures with your friends.”

Ardbert nodded and crossed to the window to look out over Lakeland. “You know, I remember the first time we came here–long before the Crystarium, of course. It had been raining when we got to Laxan Loft that night, but in the morning the sky was clear like this and the view of the forest and lake was breathtaking…”

He soon fell into the easy tone of reminiscence, and Aeryn listened as she prepared for the day. 

“I’m the memory bearer,” Nirahsa thought to herself before glancing at the ceremonial bowl she’d been given to hold the stones that other Eredar would etch the burden of a memory upon that they wanted to be relieved of. “It’s…ironic that one who had once lost all their memories is now to be the bearer of the burdens others wish to move past.”

“It’s not like you don’t remember now,” A familiar if far to edgy voice remarked in Nirahsa’s head as Asharin mused.

“And I still at times wish I didn’t remember.”

“Heh” Nirahsa could see the smirk that would have been on Asharin’s face from the sound of her low chortle, “That overgrown hot chocolate bearing teddy bear would probably say, ‘Friend Nirahsa! That is what the Tishamaat is all about! Leaving our troublesome memories in the past and moving towards a brighter dawn!’” The tone of Asharin was very much a caricature of Vasily.

Nirahsa moved through the ceremonial room of the Exodar, slipping past a few people before approaching one group and trying to smile brightly at them. The actual look was a tad more awkward as Nirahsa always felt a bit out of place in large crowds. “May I take your memory stones, yes yes?”

There were several thunks as the stones were placed in tishataan bowl she held up for them, giving a small bow. The goggled Draenei then moved on to get more stones from other eredar that were attending the celebration.

She tilted her head, musing in her head, “You don’t dislike Vasily nearly as much as you put on.”

“He is extremely irritating with how joyful he is all the time,” Asharin intoned with annoyance.

“And yet you at times feel rather giddy before our sessions with him.” Nirahsa couldn’t help but smile lightly even as she felt Asharin fume a little.

“I do not feel, ‘giddy’ no no!”

“You can’t hide that Asharin, I’m in your head as much as you’re in mine! Yes yes!”

Asharin scoffed, “Maybe….but if you ever tell the Teddy Bear that I’ll kill you!”

The tinkerer chuckled a little to herself, she probably looked a tad odd to some Draenei. As while she wasn’t verbally talking to herself, she was still inclining her head like one would in response to listening to someone. Varying enough that one could potentially wonder if she was having a conversation with herself in her own head, though most wouldn’t realize how literal that really was.

Nirahsa spoke to more Eredar and collected several more memory stones, her gaze glancing at the etchings upon their surface. Giving insight as to some of the burdens others wish to move beyond. Many were things she’d never have expected to be burdening them to begin with.

As she walked while doing her duty as Tishataan, Nirahsa began to reflect on what she should put on her own stone. It was odd, while she’d regained her memory eventually, remembering some of the terrible things she’d helped do on Draenor. Those events felt like a different lifetime, a different person entirely. It wasn’t who she was now at all even though it still troubled her at times.

For while those events felt like a different person did them, she knew it wasn’t so, they were done by her. A her that was filled with sadness and grief at the loss of her niece Shari in the Orc attack on Shattrath. While Shari hadn't been her own daughter, she had still been a reminder and a promise to Nirahsa’s Sister who’d passed several years previously due to an illness. The loss of the young girl had shattered her, leading to her eventually aiding humans that became stranded on Draenor years later. Giving them tools and explosives to use to attack Orc Villages indiscriminately with. Instead of lessening the wound in her soul, helping such indiscriminate killing just made it worse.

“That was more me than you,” Asharin’s thoughts slipped in solemnly. “No, it was both of us, since we were one and the same at the time,” Nirahsa returned with a sigh. She must have been frowning sadly as it prompted several people nearby to ask her if everything was alright.

“I’m fine, just…recalling my own burdens,” She stated trying to smile soflty as she moved on.

Eventually the time came as Nirahsa reached Grand Anchorite Almonen and he handed her a Memory Stone, instructing her as to how it was to be etched for the ceremony. Before all the stones were to be cast into the blue fire before the Anchorite.

“What are you going to put?” Asharin asked in her head.

Nirahsa thought for a moment before she began to etch.

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Artificer Nirahsa & Asharin We are at times still weighed down by what the Orcs did. We hated them for the pain they caused, we lashed back causing pain to them in retribution. They were manipulated, and it isn’t fair to hate all of them because of it. Giving pain never grants more than a brief reprieve for your own. We want to move past our pain that causes such inherent distrust.

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Nirahsa set the stone in the bowl atop the others, waiting a few seconds as if she expected to hear Asharin deliver a retort about Nirahsa lumping her in with her. Instead there was just silence.

The Draenei drew in a breath before she then cast all of the stones into the fire, to burn away the burdens of all the Eredar at the Tishamaat.

“Thank you, Nirahsa,” Asharin’s voice in her head was unusually soft and muted, her normal edginess gone for the moment. Nirahsa just smiled to herself while watching the fire continue to burn.